Sunken Garden
A Film-Opera
by Michel van der Aa and David Mitchell
Authorised by David Mitchell & Michel van der Aa
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH Scene 1
ZENNA:
So this is the cradle where
you nurture your universes.
TOBY:
I do what I can with what’s to hand.
Begged and borrowed, duct-tape and prayers...
ZENNA:
The James and Zenna Briggs Foundation sees
No point in stipends for celebrities.
We prefer to offer help to
Not-yet-established artists.
TOBY:
I’m curious, Mrs Briggs, how I came
To the attention of your Foundation.
ZENNA:
My husband’s agent is well-connected
With the underground art scene.
TOBY:
Connected all the way down
to my basement flat, it seems.
How is the Briggs Foundation funded,
may I ask?
ZENNA:
I don’t pretend to understand
My husband’s monetary alchemy,
investment vehicles, un-hedged funds.
My role is to sniff out up-and-coming
genius: the Jasper Johnses of tomorrow.
So tell me what you’re working on.
TOBY:
An art-house documentary, I call it.
Three months ago an ordinary man
named Simon Vines went out for a walk not far from here - and never came home.
A minor story, come and gone. So why
this vanishing enslaves my curiosity, I
Cannot say. Yet the harder I push
Simon Vines away, the more doggedly
He hounds me. He hounds me.
I want to follow Simon Vines’s story
To its end; locate him and discover
Why he disengaged from life. A theme
both ancient and modern. Needing
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH to start somewhere I recorded
interviews with friends of Vines.
ZENNA:
“A Portrait of a Missing Man.” The friends
of Simon Vines were willing to cooperate?
TOBY:
Willing, desperate and grateful. Let me
Show you the story so far...
ALLY:
Yeah, My name’s Ally, Ally Hewitt, and me and Simon, we
met in college. There was a big bunch of us actually, he was living with his
mate Sadaqat at the time and my friend Trish had this old clapped out VW
that we’d all go away on the weekends in. It was good, good times. Me and
Simon weren’t an item, not back then anyway, but we stayed in touch, and
we ended up working in the very same retail park. One thing led to another,
and a... and then... Something happened, I mean stuff happens, in any
relationship, good stuff, bad stuff... and a piece of... rather...rather bad stuff...
Happened to us.
RITA WALES: Is it going? Oh I thought you’d say ‘Action!’, Tony. Well, if
it's rolling, my name is Rita Wales, and I’m Simon’s landlady, at least I was,
but I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since the June, no it was the evening
of June 21st to be exact. I remember Simon came down the stairs and I
happened to meet him in the hall. And he said something like I'm off to get
some fresh air, and I said Quite right too, because he’d been cooped up in his
room the live-long day doing his computering. And he never came back. Not
that night, nor the next day, nor the night after that. The next day I went to the
police and they gave it all oh well he'll be back in 48 hours love, or he's
probably gone on holiday with his friends, and I said, You don't understand he
hasn’t got any friends.
ALLY:
We took this minibreak to Venice - you know it was one of
these last minute, cheap flights, real make-or-break kind of thing. Well it
broke. We just kept bickering about these little things, except there never
really little, are they?
RITA:
Well, his heart had been put through the shredder by the
Madam he was with previous to coming here, wasn’t it? Elly or Ally or
somesuch. Poor kid. I’ve got a gift for sensing these things. He had zero
social life.
Just tap-tap-tapping away, morning noon and night. I said to
him, Simon, come on get up Get back in the saddle, there’s plenty more fish
in the sea. And he, do you know what he said to me, He said I daren’t be tied
to anyone. It ends in tears. Now I think that's the trouble with people these
days, know what I mean, you need those ties, even if they get messy and
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH awkward sometimes.
Ties of the flesh, - computer ties don’t count, cause
you can just switch the machine off when the going gets tough
SADAQAT:
My name is Sadaqat Daastani. I am a resident here in the
Five-Star Dawkins Psychiatric Hotel, where service is second to none. Nice
camera... Is that a Zeiss lens
Since my very first day at school, where the teacher made me sit next to a
gawky boy named Simon Vines. I was a freshly-imported, non-verbal
Pakistani. I liked to play chess. Ah chess yes, my only talent was chess, and
It did not earn me much popularity. Would you care for a game of chess,
Toby Kramer?
“A child need not be very clever to learn that “Later, dear” means ‘never’.”
Simon was my friend, all the way through our school years. and he met Ally.
yes of course first choice university We both opted for the same first-choice
university, and we both got in. And no, we both preferred girls. You met Ally.
Uncomplicated times, back before my Revelation.
About the Ones....the ones at the very top of the food chain, the Soul Eaters!
The Ones that leave messages in graffiti. The Ones who stare at you from
coaches, pretending to be tourists. Which in a way is what they are. The
Vegetarians, that is. The Carnivores they are not merely tourists.
RITA WALES: I mean sometimes I thought Simon hadn’t eaten, so I used
to take him his supper up on a tray, I’d knock on his door and say, Room
Service! You’ve got to do what you can for people, haven’t you? Did I
mention I’m a mum, yes I'm a mother. My Robert’s he settled in Florida of all
places, married a beautician, if you please. Annette. Twice, they’ve visited:
twice, in seven blinkin’ years. No kids, which sets the alarm bells ringing
doesn't it. She's one of those career women if you know what I mean
SADAQAT:
Unanchored! ‘Unanchored in Reality’ that was Simon’s
gentle phrase. My father, he just wanted me hidden away. “So how is
Sadaqat these days, Mr Daastani? An eye-doctor, wasn’t it?” “Very well,
thank you, but he has decided to become a fully fledged sectioned lunatic
instead of going into opthalmology as planned.” Bad blood, you see, it's
harder to marry off my sisters. By the way, do you have a card? A business
card? I collect them.
After Ally you mean? No. He hid under his stone. Yes. One girl Simon met.
In a therapy class I attended here Her name was Amber. A sticky resin. I
saw Simon and her talk, outside.
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH SADAQAT:
Whereabouts? Simon has no whereabouts. A Carnivore
took him. They are drawn to institutions like this one. We are their salmon
farm. They visit you when you are sleeping. Doctor Marinus, she's the
psychiatrist. She's an other. Oh or are you just playing with me? Is this ‘film
project’ the worm on the hook? Do you plan to reel me in?
ZENNA:
What a gaoler, what a gaol,
The human mind can be.
TOBY:
Simon Vines was his bridge to reality.
With Vines now gone the bridge is gone.
ZENNA:
A bizarre psychosis: races of immortals,
The harvesting of souls! Your early steps
in search of Vines hold the promise of...
A truly Homeric journey. Your video-cubist
Project must see the light of day.
I speak for the Briggs Foundation, and
We declare that Toby Kramer is an artist
of precocity and a lucid vision; a zeitgeist
Surfer, truly. Naturally, I came prepared:
This contains
A bank draft, commensurate to your needs.
TOBY:
I’m gobsmacked, Mrs Briggs - I
Hardly dare believe I’m awake.
ZENNA:
Expect me by the year’s end.
We’ll review the progress then.
TOBY:
“An Ascendant Jupiter over the autumn equinox
Will bring a billionaire’s bored wife to your door.
She bears a cheque fat enough to cover your most
clamourous debts, buy a trolley-full of gear, and
Fund your first creation.” I’ll bet a state-of-the-art
editing suite there’s more where this came from.
“I’m gobsmacked, Mrs Briggs: I hardly dare believe...”
That one who holds the purse-strings can be as mad
As a sack of cats. Toby Kramer, you lucky
bastard - so lights... Action... Glory!
Scene 2
TOBY:
The shortest day, the darkest
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH One, the iciest one.
ZENNA:
I wanted to drop by before
You went home for Christmas.
TOBY:
Art is my home: this film. Dad lives - “lives” in Omaha: my mother died, some time ago.
LAW:
Were you very young
when she left this world?
TOBY:
Time’s not so much a healer, as a halfwayDecent anaesthetician. I miss Mum, sure, but
I’ve got a stack of memories: video, too.
Her final gift was a Sony Camcorder.
I filmed her funeral. And that’s how I coped.
Captured in a viewfinder, Grief and Fear
Are defanged. The most bruiseable heart
Becomes an impassionate eye - Vision, itself...
Ah, this sounds unhinged.
ZENNA:
It sounds very hinged, indeed, dear Toby.
So how goes the work?
Did you locate your muse and subject
Simon Vines?
TOBY:
Not yet. My leads led down dead-ends,
Until I recalled that Sadaqat the Schizophrenic
Mentioned a girl, a girl called Amber.
Simon met her at the hospital. Online,
I tracked down Amber Jacquemain,
a student of art history, here in the city.
I emailed, but no reply: went to her college,
Asked around, but here’s the thing:
No-one has seen her since September.
ZENNA:
A girl. One wondered when a girl
Might rear her irresistible head.
But one’s heart goes out to the parents.
They must be half-insane with worry.
PORTIA:
I’m Portia Jacquemain, owner of Portia Jacquemain Gallery
here on Denmark Street where we’re hosting a retrospective of Prudence
Hanson’s ground-breaking career. We’re calling the show ‘The Cat Crapped
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH and Crept Out Again’ which captures perfectly Prudence’s use of object
trouvee from building-site skips and wheelybins, and peoples…
So you’re Amber’s friend too, yes? A friend or a “friend”? I do have a softspot for video artists. Bill Viola - do you know Bill? - whenever Bill’s in
Venice, we always ....
A project on my daughter’s so-called Life? Wouldn’t Prudence Hanson make
a better subject?
Until December 8th we’re hosting a spectacular
retroshteptif- retroshpecktiff-, oh fuck, a retroff“Amber Isn’t Missing.” She’s just... gone off somewhere. She has form,
Toby. Form. Aged fifteen she went off with a DJ, whereabouts unknown for
three days. Aged sixteen, the owner of a Tuscan stud-farm twice her age,
married. Who’s next? So you can see why I am not exactly running to
Interpol about Amber’s latest... little Escapade. The moment her account’s
running low she’ll come waltzing back in with a “Wonga’s running low
Mummy.” I mean, Toby. She left her blessed iPhone here before she
vamoosed, with all her precious apps and ring-tones and God-knows-what-on
it.
“Simon Vines”... Nope, Never heard of him. Oh No - the singer from Duran
Duran? No, that was SImon le Bong, on the yacht.
“Happy”? She bloody well ought to be! Fat allowance off her father, a
spanking new Audi runabout, and a flat between the palace and the park!
ZENNA:
Adding two and two together, Vines
ran away with Amber. Yet here, two and
Two do not make four: Vines went in June;
Amber, three months later. Why the delay?
Why elope? Vines was single; and Amber’s
not a girl to care about parental disapproval.
TOBY:
There’s something else. Using your money,
I hired a consultant to locate them. He
found no trace: no card transactions,
no online activity, no tickets bought.
Nothing. He returned most of his fee,
Saying It’s as if they ceased to exist.
ZENNA:
Well! Your art-house documentary is in
uncharted waters. Perhaps you wish to...
TOBY:
...to quit? Not a chance.
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH One breakthrough I can boast of I left Portia Jacquemain’s Gallery
With Amber’s iPhone in my pocket.
Artists must create their luck.
TOBY:
Vines’ name did not appear: the emails
were the student froth you might expect.
But Amber had a fondness for shooting
video clips: I edited this sequence…
AMBER:
I have these dreams... An iron door, where
there is no door. Through the keyhole, you
see this sunken garden. Your mind sort of...
Leaves, from here
And through you swoop, like Alice, butterflying
among big flowers, and trees, speaking all
at once. What I did, my... Bad Mistake, it
never happened and never will. I am innocent.
The only shadow is knowing the dream must
End. I’m slipping out of mirrors.
Backstreets of waking and sleeping.
ZENNA:
One’s at a loss to know how to start...
This girl’s a shattered vase. Who,
Or what, is “Marinus”?
TOBY:
A psychiatrist at Dawkins Hospital. She treats
Sadaqat Dastaani; and treated Amber.
Though why she’s “A Lie”, I couldn’t say.
She won’t return my calls. Mrs Briggs,
I know my film has undergone
A lot of changes, but I need to know if-
ZENNA:
The Bruce and Zenna Foundation knows
that Art is an ever-evolving thing, spurred by
Changes of mind. Our faith in you remains –
– Unbroken.
TOBY:
Thank you. The key is near now,
very near. I just know.
I didn’t breathe a word, Amber, how it has changed
Now I’ve met you and walked your mind.
She didn’t need to know, why I’m travelling
To where you are, and who I do it for.
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH Why I follow your fading footprints, back
Through the last ten weeks, until we find
Each other. Amber. Those other men you
Went with, they couldn’t understand you,
not like me. They ate your body, spitting
Out your heart. Never heard you at dusk;
And I glimpsed you, Amber, slipping out of mirrors;
Backstreets of waking and sleeping.
Scene 3
ZENNA:
“March comes in like a lion, and leaves
Like a lamb.” No sign of the lamb today.
TOBY:
Mrs Briggs, I wasn’t expecting you... so soon.
ZENNA:
Three whole months since last we spoke.
Have you no calendars down here?
The Foundation trusts your long-awaited
masterwork is ready for unveiling?
TOBY:
Yes – it’s changed its spots, its skin.
Some profound and new developments...
ZENNA:
The two lost sheep you have found, at least,
To show for your time and our money?
TOBY:
What I found is this: reason to doubt
that Simon and Amber disappeared
Of their own free will. Reason to suppose that
Some... Agency, or some one... took them.
Something took them.
ZENNA:
That’s quite a claim.
How did the police respond?
TOBY:
The police would be a monumental waste
Of time! To join the police you have to have
your imagination surgically removed.
ZENNA:
It’s true, the law requires evidence an
Abduction has taken place, and witnesses,
Before it acts. So where’s your proof?
TOBY:
A week ago, at an anti-social hour,
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH A witness approached me...
SADAQAT:
It says ‘Made in Japan’ but it means ‘Made in China’ really.
Who conducts the vast container ships that head out of Shanghai and
Guang-jo? Simon said, ‘A central maritime computer.’ Yes, dear Simon, but
who conducts the central maritime computer?’
Simon said, ‘Global
capitalism’. I miss Simon’s jokes.
In my nightmare, I woke up in Korea, North – South – North - North Korea.
They put a radio into my tooth, my wisdom tooth, and when I woke up for
real, the radio was still there. You know sometimes I think I can hear Kim IlJung, but the funny thing is he only speaks Korean. Your number? On your
card.
To warn you – Simon ignored my warning, Simon got taken. The girl, Amber,
she got taken too. You’ve fallen for Amber too, right? You big fat liar. I'm
more doped than the entire Tour de France squad, yet I even noticed her.
Simon definitely did. She had it, she had it too. The dream, the dream about
the garden. She drew it in her art therapy class. Have you had it yet? Have
you had the dream yet.
If you’re very lucky, you might get away. You could try. She might, she might
have another chicken to hand, ready to roast. She might even spare herself
the bother of even hunting you down. But no probably not. Because
Carnivores they live for the hunt. They live for the hunt, and I think she’s got
you down as the third course of her meal.
Equinoxes. Solstices. The corners of the year. That’s when they're taken!
Simon: midsummer’s day. Amber: the autumn Equinox. See? That’s when
they're gone!
Doctor Marinus, she's not one of us. She’s From another place. It’s in her
eyes.
ZENNA:
I ask for proof of abduction –
You give me this poor man’s ramblings!
TOBY:
Remember Amber’s messages:
Marinus is a Lie. That shrink is hiding
Something. Why else refuse to meet?
ZENNA:
One imagines she encounters insanity
enough in the course of her working day.
TOBY:
But the patterns! The garden dream; the chain
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH of acquaintance; the timings of the vanishings!
Next week is the eqinox: what if another one gets
Taken? You want that on your conscience?
ZENNA:
On rare occasions, the James and Zenna Briggs
Foundation makes mistakes. You, alas, are one.
Forthwith we wash our hands of you.
TOBY:
No no no – you must give me money –
This exposé must be filmed – and in 3D! –
My film will alter history! How life and death
Are seen! An invisible war is going on, around
us every day, but the public will only believe
The truth if it’s shot in 3D. This is your duty!
ZENNA:
‘You must give me money’? ‘This is your duty’?
Sanity knows the shouter from the echo, Mr Kramer.
You no longer know – you need psychiatric help.
A bitter disappointment.
Scene 4
Simon Vines walks through an urban wasteland, encountering the graffito
‘Drowning is Survival’ during his wanderings...
Scene 5
SIMON:
Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap...
Ally - Ally? Get me Ally. I need to speak to Ally.
A little flat in a not-too-dodgy neighbourhood.
Then I see the blustery light of morning.
Your preferred network is not available.
Sadaqat. How have you been this week?
Ally, Ally, Ally, something awful’s happened.
“Doctor, doctor, I keep forgetting things.”
“I see. When did this begin? “When did what begin?”
I daren’t be tied to anyone. It ends in tears.
Forgotten your PIN and password? Click here.
If only I’d woken up. If only I’d woken up.
TOBY:
Simon Vines?
Can you hear me, Simon?
MARINUS
Hard to say; he’s engraven on the air...
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH “We are such stuff as dreams are made of.”
TOBY:
You - Doctor Iris Marinus You - made this - this...
MARINUS:
I’m Marinus, as charged, Tobias Kramer.
But no, this garden’s not my handiwork.
Enchanting for a brief sojourn, but
You would not want to live here.
TOBY:
Marinus is a lie!
What did you do with Amber?
MARINUS:
How sure you are of your facts.
Do you come here often?
TOBY:
I dreamt this place; Amber is here;
Sadaqat warned me about you.
MARINUS:
Sadaqat is a curious one, but not
all-knowing; and wrong about Marinus.
TOBY:
You tell me, then! Am I dead,
or dreaming, insane or what?
MARINUS:
Insane? No, though you drifted rudderlessly
close to those rocks. A dream? Not this time:
That is your corporeal self you have on.
Death? If Life be Day and Death be Night,
then that electricity you call the Soul must
cross the Dusk that lies between. Where
We stand was built inside the Dusk.
I’d make more sense in Sanskrit; or
Better yet, Tibetan. I don’t suppose-
TOBY:
Amber, I found you,
I’ve come for you, I -
AMBER:
Backstreets of waking and sleeping
“The newspaper said ‘Hey what you doin’ in bed?’
I said ‘We’re only tryin’ to get us some sleep.”
Mummy, the wonga is running low. Clubbing her
to death would have been kinder. “With a taste
of your lips – I’m on a ride – You're toxic –”
SEND MESSAGE? She didn’t just steal him!
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH The bitch stole our future life!
Some nights I dream I’m her.
MESSAGE SENT to STELLA.
MARINUS:
She’s been here three months less than Vines,
So she’s still more coherent. And Vines, at least, can
Still recall - fragmentedly - his life and self. But
Soon they’ll join the others.
TOBY:
There are others before Vines?
Before these two? Where?
MARINUS:
You’ve heard the moths, the hundreds of moths.
Ghosts without memories of who they were.
TOBY:
What do you gain from their suffering?
MARINUS:
Tobias Kramer, think: were I the Lord of Darkness,
Why indulge you with this jolly tête-a-tête?
TOBY:
If not you,
Then who?
MARINUS:
If not now, then when? Where’s
Your sense of hospitality?
Scene 6
ZENNA:
Toby Kramer I invited here, but
Trespassers will be prosecuted.
MARINUS:
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive those who trespass against us.”
TOBY
Mrs Briggs - how did you come here?
Wait, you dreamt the garden too?
MARINUS:
Our good host built this place - invented it.
That fetching portal leads from her mind.
TOBY:
Mrs Briggs - what should I believe?
ZENNA:
At this late stage, believe what you wish.
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH MARINUS:
This pleasant sunken garden is an infernal engine.
It cures mortality - her own, that is. This miracle
of occultic-engineering comes with just one catch They always do. Infernal engines don’t run on air.
They run on human souls. One per quarter,
Like your power bill. Hence her guests.
TOBY:
Then I demand -
ZENNA:
“I demand”? Nine years in an orphanage for half-castes;
A white gentleman who took me into ‘Service’
In his fetid bed; where trauma woke my latent Gift I cracked his mind like bone. Stones and hisses Chakra-Witch, Chakra-Witch - along the Madras Road.
I begged under an effigy of Sainted Zenna, until
by chance a Chakra-Healer passed and saw my
Open Eye, ablaze; six years in my Mistress’s house;
Lowly chattel of the Righteous World... Until one
Torrid noon Truth led me to the Shaded Way.
It served me well. An English chaplain from New Delhi
was suasioned to adopt this curious half-breed:
thence Oxford, and marriage to wealthy James Briggs
who died so young. I, a poor widow, withdrew
from the world, to build my Garden in the Dusk:
from bricks and trials and countless errors...
So many guests, so troublesome to procure,
so easily torn, like moths. Until one madrigal morning,
I looked upon my Work and saw that it was good.
Your “I demand” is a mosquito, to be….. !
MARINUS:
Do you never look upon your Work and
Consider your victims’ unlived lives?
You preach euthanasia, yet
Own shares in the clinic.
ZENNA:
Humanity is seven needy billion,
Mewling, spawning, gobbling, befouling
overcrowded nests. One - per season
Is all I take. You eat more animals in a week.
MARINUS:
You lack the right. Your prey - these moths They cannot even die. This engine must be
dismantled. And since you raised the topic,
I’m a vegetarian.
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH ZENNA:
My right is the right of the Shaded Way;
The right of Life to outfox Death.
How dare you deny my rights?
“This engine must be dismantled”? By what force?
MARINUS:
My right is the right of the healer to treat
a disease. What force? Why, I’ll huff
and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.
ZENNA:
Destroy the walls encircling my garden, and
Dusk would drown us all. You wouldn’t dare.
MARINUS:
I dare. I dare. But here’s a proposition: allow
Simon, Amber and Tobias here to choose
Between life back in the world, or death,
and what’s beyond. Then forsake this
Sunken Garden, and never build another.
ZENNA:
And as compensation for my lost life
everlasting, I receive... What?
MARINUS:
Live out the term of your natural life.
Refuse my proposition and we all die this hour.
ZENNA
We have a deal. But Marinus,
Make no mistake: I damn you.
MARINUS:
Make no mistake: that was done,
A long, long time ago.
Scene 7
SIMON:
Emily was seven months old. Ally’s friend
had a hen-night in a posh hotel in the middle
of nowhere, a Friday. Go, I said. Do ya good.
Me and Emily’ll be just fine. Our daughter
was sleeping through til six a.m., Little Angel.
So off Ally went and I fed Emily,
Smelt her neck. You know that lovely smell
they have? Washed her, changed her,
watched her fall asleep...
Guy at work’d lent me Tarkovsky’s
Solaris: I put it on, opened a beer. A knackering
week it had been, the fire was crackling, Solaris
impenetrable, so I nodded off. Next thing,
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH I’m on the sofa. Clock says eight: 8 pm, I think
At first, then I see the blustery light of morning.
Ran upstairs. As still as her doll but colder,
was our daughter. My daughter.
The coroner said I wasn’t to blame.
Ally said the same, much later. My conscience
never agreed. Months, I hobbled through...
Every kid I saw, every pushchair, a thumb-tack
Of pain, every smiling parent on TV, a nail.
Until one night I dreamt this garden where I’d never
Been a Dad. Here I’m not guilty of anything.
Christ, I remember! Emily!
ZENNA:
Of cancer of the conscience,
I healed him. Memories are painful, are they not?
I know you hurt, incurably. That’s why I chose you.
Give me your pain, Toby. Spill it... ...Now.
TOBY
My mother was dying at home in bed. The pain “You’d not let a dog suffer like this”
She said she’d asked my father, but his principles
Forbade him. His principles? His cowardice! So
I gave her the bottle of Izunolethe. She could
Hardly swallow, nor sit up without my help. One
by one by one – pill, water; pill, water; pill, water.
She drifted away... That smudged quarter hour
between night and day. Pill, water; pill, water;
pill, water. She drifted away...
I kept vigil for her final breath...
Then, incredibly, I fell asleep... and woke when
Father came. “What have you done? What have
You done?” The doctor suspected, but Father
Paid him off, then told me he never wished to see
My face again, and that’s one promise he’s actually
kept. I’d do it again – what choice would I have?
But it’s cursed me all the same.
ZENNA:
Stay in this garden, dear Toby, and your act,
your guilt, your pain, will have never – even – existed.
MARINUS:
At what price to him? With what gain to you?
You lock his grief; you cloud his mind; Toby!
Were your mother here, would she advise
Oblivion? Or urge you back to life?
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH TOBY
Life. I choose the world.
But what about Amber?
AMBER:
I met him at his private view, my ovaries screamed
Him! Ten days later, his newly-exed – an actress –
was blubbing down the phone: Take care of him...
Be happy if I can’t. We were, I was. Summer kissed
us long and hard, I dreamed our future lives, our
children’s names and faces. Autumn was torching
trees when Stella came a-calling. Stella whom
I’d known for years, Stella never much luck
with men... til now... Three months later, they got
engaged. “They’re made for each other,” I told
our friends,“I wish them joy.”
Bull-shit! Fervently I prayed to the god of twists
and turns, who heard. Oh yes, she heard. Guess
who I saw, one dark night, climb into a taxi? Him
and his ex, the actress.
AMBER: Stella the inconsolable, Stella who didn’t die
but never wakes, hooked up to pumps and
God knows what. Five dark years
I numbed my guilt, whatever way I could... Until
one night I found this place, where messages
are never sent. I am innocent, neversent, innocent...
MARINUS/ALL: We are born already bound by a contract
With Life, signed nine months before by a
Woman and a man we never met. This
Contract’s terms are non-negotiable.
Here is Clause One:
You Will Suffer. In stabs, in private and public,
Incessantly. Suffering from those faults
We nourish fondly; Suffering from twisted plots;
Unfriendly cards, So what to do?
Attack suffering’s hydra-headed causes?
Grit one’s teeth, surrender the keys to snarky nihilism?
Select an opiate to deaden the pain at a loanshark cost?
Endure the Unendurable? Unless
we count the last resort of tearing up
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH Life’s contract, by pills or gun-shot or however
Strikes you as the most painless way...
Why soldier on, then, us contractual slaves?
Because Clause Two reads, You May Hope.
Hope the hydras run out of heads; hope
Endurance triumphs; hope for friendlier cards;
Hope that suffering is fractured by Change;
Hope for a stranger’s kindness, for clarity,
For in-jokes gotten, for shards of sun on waves,
and love - love’s a good one - listen:
The most painless way to die is to live.
MARINUS:
They have chosen, life or death,
Day or Night. Let them leave.
TOBY:
Who chose which way?
ZENNA
None of my concern, nor
yours. One can guess.
TOBY:
And am I free to leave?
ZENNA:
So keen, you were, to visit us.
I had in mind a leisurely sojourn...
MARINUS:
We have a deal! He goes back.
You follow; I switch off the lights.
ZENNA:
Hurry, hurry, hurry: you hurried me
Before – coercing my consent.
A lady has the right, to change her mind.
MARINUS
Abide by our agreement:
or else it’s war - you understand?
ZENNA:
Oh, I understand
perfectly: it’s War.
Scene 8
TOBY:
Marinus, what’s wrong?
Why is it darker? What’s that noise?
ZENNA:
She spent herself. The Righteous Arts
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH Are so very frail. That thunder is the Dusk,
Breaching the garden walls, dissolving
All it touches. Don’t fret: we have a minute
maybe two. Pity you left your camera behind...
TOBY:
Marinus! How do I get back?
ZENNA:
No walls means no gate in the wall.
You die here. So does she. As for me,
Well, I have a surprise announcement.
This fine figure of a woman is not my body
but my mind, projected through a
matching screen. My true corporeal self
Lies safe and sound in your studio, Kramer,
Awaiting my return. I mustn’t keep it.
You wrecked this sunken garden, yes,
but soon I’ll make a new one. So here’s
Here’s a dying thought for you: I Die In Vain.
TOBY:
What graffiti...?
“Drowning is Survival”? Which means what?
There’s nowhere here to drow–
MARINUS:
Go now - the Dusk won’t wait -
TOBY:
You can’t stay - we can both go through -
MARINUS:
Your mind and my mind in her body?
Won’t work. I’m an utter pig to live with.
TOBY:
But, when that darkness comes?
MARINUS:
If I die, perhaps it’s time - if not, not; but
Quick Tobias! Run run - GO GO!
Scene 9
TOBY (in ZENNA’s body):
Time’s gone by - days, weeks, months.
It is still what it is - I am still what I am.
Toby Kramer in a tucked-in body.
What pronoun are you, or we - He? She?
The truth is not admissible at the Court of the Sane.
Youth is gone; my gender’s switched;
My old life’s obselete. I own the wealth
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH of Zenna Briggs, which not a hundred lives.
Could dent. On this new, old face is written
Life’s Third Clause: It Must End And Shall.
Let these words prise open every
January dawn, usher in my finite
Springs. See them dazzle in the shards
of broken sun on waves; hear them, in
Unexpected songs; re-read them in brave
and muddy garden, especially at dusk.
PORTIA:
I was on the phone to the garage when the police turned up.
Our cleaners had hired some No-Speaky-English-Asylum-Seeker who had
actually mistaken our Prudence Hanson’s exhibition for rubbish - genuine
rubbish - and had stuffed it into the wheelybin that morning before I got in to
work, but by which time the refuse van had come and gone. Prudence
Hanson originals, heading straight to Landfill! So my first thought when I saw
the police was Glory Hallejulah, PC Plod is finally learning to treat
contemporary arts with due respect. But the policeman said, ‘Are you the
mother of Amber Jacquemain?’ and I said Yes, and he said, ‘Then I’m very
sorry, but I have bad news.’
PORTIA:
Amber was nine, or ten. Her father had left. For the second
time. Just as we were due to go on holiday to Ireland, but I thought, Damn
me if we are going to go into mourning for that toe-rag, so we took the West
Cork ferry anyway. You know how rainy Ireland is? We had scorching
weather, not a drop for ten days. We had this kite, a big bright red thing. On
our last afternoon we were flying it on Long Strand, and either me or Amber
dropped the spooly thing, and the wind took the kite and the spooly thing just
ran away across the beach, over the sand. Well we ran after it, but the funny
thing was that the spooly thing bounced away at exactly the speed that we
ran, like it was playing a game with us. At the time we just couldn’t stop
laughing, and it was sort of thrilling, too. Finally Amber sort of... Dived and
caught it. Well, it was like she’d won Wimbledon!
SIMON:
The first time’s always the worst: for me, it was like, "Simon
Vines, what do you think you’re doing?" and then animal terror and my body’s
like, "No - effing - way am I getting out of that plane!" And Ally, Jerry our
instructor, he actually had to boot me out of the airplane, literally. Then I was
out, falling and there’s this shrieking like, like you know when the bad guys
get dragged off into hell in that film GHOST, you know that film? Right, the
airplane’s spinning away, and that shrieking, it’s coming out of me! Then all
of a sudden your mind’s back, like “Hello Mind, Welcome Home”... And you’re
falling through the big blue cloudy space, like... the sky's one vast eye,
eyeballing you, and... the... Truth is, I don’t know if Emily’d still be alive if, if I’d
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH not slept that night: or if she’d’ve died anyway. That’s, y’know... Unknowable.
– and – I’m going to live with that. No choice. Well, there is one choice, but,
I, I’ve ruled that out. “The Living are the Dead on Holiday”, my mate Sadaqat
says, and a short holiday it is, too, more of a mini-break, so... I’m going to see
this through to the end. Anyway you’re falling, falling, still falling, and you
look down over this patchwork and see the fields, the towns, the rivers, the
roads, the factories, hospitals, houses – and it's all... Laid out, pristinely
below, and you think, Look at this, look at this.. massive, cruel, beautiful,
unjust, miraculous... World-Machine. Look at it. And you think, “I’m part of
this.”
Libretto by David Mitchel © 2012 Boosey & Hawkes, Bote und Bock GmbH